


Team Killing-Slavers

by supersquid



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders & Fenris (Dragon Age) Friendship, Anders vs Fenris FIGHT, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hawke didn't completely romance anyone, Mage Hawke (Dragon Age), but like a slowburn friendship yknow, this one's all about friendship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25744855
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supersquid/pseuds/supersquid
Summary: The Champion of Kirkwall was killed in the legendary battle against Knight-Commander Meredith while fighting for the freedom of mages. After Meredith's defeat, Hawke's companions knew they had to get out before more templars arrived. Aveline and Carver stayed behind, their ties to the city would protect them, but Isabela, Merrill, Anders, Fenris, and Varric took Castillon's ship to sea to escape the fallout of the mage rebellion.On board the Hawk's Call, the five of them mourn Hawke in their own ways and try to carry on without her guidance. Isabela is promoted to Captain once again, and without a competent crew, she has to determine what they'll do alone. Merrill tries to hold the fractured group together while arguments and blame split them. Fenris desperately wants to let go, Anders desperately wants to move on, and if they can't learn to understand each other now, they never will. Varric tries to navigate a world without his best friend.After six years together, all they have left is a rickety ship, the memories of their days with Hawke, and each other. Oh, and a mutual love for slaughtering the shit out of slavers.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	1. Isabela

Isabela pushed piles of yellowed letters and maps off Castillon’s chipped mahogany desk. She could tell it was once a beautiful carving, the corners lined with elaborate patterns of seashells and gems and where the top and legs connected, fading wooden mermaids perched with arms outstretched along the splintered sides. She sat down on the velvet-lined chair behind the desk and swung her feet up onto it. Only one candle illuminated the captain’s quarters, and she barely had time to look around earlier, so she took a moment to take in Castillon’s mess. She should’ve known what she was getting, taking the ship of a man with less sense of honour than most pirates she knew. Maybe Isabela wasn’t the tidiest, but she knew damn well how to take care of a boat. Mismatched chests filled with clothes and trinkets as well as the crowbars originally used to pry them open laid scattered on the wooden floor, and the wardrobes that lined the sides of the room were spilled open with more of Castillon’s garbage. In one, impressive varieties of weapons were stacked hapharsdaly. No doubt looted from Castillon’s victims. Isabela cringed seeing several Qunari swords among them, knowing how important to their people they were, and then being taken aback by her reaction. Since when did she care about the plight of the Qunari? Since Hawke, apparently. The bed at the back of the room was gaudy and extravagant, the blanket that adorned the white sheets delineated with metallic gold and pink threads. Undoubtedly an Antivan export, Isabela thought. Any other time in her life, she’d be smugly excited to sleep in such a lavish bed that belonged to such a piece of shit, but as she stared at it in the flickering darkness, a dull ache for her grimey, creaky room in the Hanged Man blossomed in her chest. The light music that graced the tavern danced in her mind, the rowdy patrons, the nights drinking with her friends… she swallowed hard to suppress it. She pulled from her pack a map and slammed it onto the desk, to convince herself she had a plan, if nothing else. She had often unrolled her old ocean maps and planned emergency escapes from Kirkwall, but they were flights of fancy at the time. She usually didn’t consider the logistics of dodging fleets of templars with a crew who didn’t know the first thing about sailing. She’d been a captain for many long years, but she spent almost a decade following the orders of someone much more competent than her. It was almost embarrassing, how easily she did what Hawke asked of her in the end, fighting for causes she didn’t think she cared about. But now...well. Isabela was charging blindly headfirst into the world she helped shape. Maker, she wished she had paid more attention.

She sighed deeply, realizing how much her thoughts kept drifting. The familiar islands and seas in her map looked alien all of a sudden, unattainable, imaginary. She felt trapped in the captain’s quarters of a ship, one of the places she had spent the most time. It was an incomprehensible suffering, to feel unwelcome in her comfort zone. In one swift movement, Isabela reached back and stabbed her dagger into the map and desk, her knuckles shaking around the handle. She stood up, her chair squeaking against the wood, and opened the door to the deck.

The night was a beautiful quiet, dark purple sky dotted with stars, and the brilliant moon reflected off the black water as their ship cut through the silence. Isabela peered up between the sails at it and breathed in, the feeling of crisp, misty, salty air once again filling her body. As long as she lived, Isabela knew she’d never get tired of this view, this feeling. A tear rolled down her cheek out of nowhere, and she wiped it away, recoiling a bit. She was not about to cry. She better not. Isabela never had time for sentimentality before, and she was not starting now. Her friends needed someone to rely on. They needed a captain. Isabela knew she could never be what Hawke was, no one ever could, but she could damn well try. She picked up scattered ropes on the deck and started sorting them, making sure everything was in the right place. Castillon’s ship was way more of a piece of shit than she had hoped. Not that it mattered now, of course. She was going to make it work, because the other option would be to give up.


	2. Merrill

Merrill’s head had been in her hands for hours now. Like a cramp in the side, the sharp sting of grief was gnawing at her insides like no wound ever could, and she felt like sitting down in the lookout post, occasionally breaking out into sobs, and making herself as small as possible relieved the pain as much as it could be. She knew it was getting her nowhere, she knew her tears would fix nothing, she knew she was taking this harder than she should, she knew her friends needed resilience right now, she knew they had bigger problems, she knew. If only the things she knew made it any easier to stand up and face their situation. This wasn’t the first time she had lost people, and every time, she ended up blaming herself in some way. She felt herself kneeling on the edge of falling down that rabbit hole, and she knew she needed to steady herself. If she started thinking about what she could’ve done to save the Champion of Kirkwall’s life, she might never stop, and the last thing they need right now is for her to be consumed by regret. As tears rolled down her cheeks, along her vallaslin, she threw her head up to the sky to help her dry her eyes. Every limb in her body felt shaky and weak, but she grabbed the sides of the bird’s nest to pull herself to her feet. It was a beautiful view, being this high up, even though there was nothing but water as far as she could see. She gazed down directly below at the ship that held every person left who still cared about her. The wind whipped gently against her neck, and she thought of staring down at her clan from the peak of Sundermount. She had always liked that about the Dalish, everything she loved could be packed up and moved in a few days. Her life in Kirkwall had become so interconnected, so dense, and now here she was, packing up and leaving once again. She had planted roots for the first time in her life, and she was surprised by how much it hurt to tear them out. She never liked the city, not really, but the bad made the good she found so much sweeter. The tree in the middle of the elven alienage made her heart swell every time she walked by it, the palace gardens were breathtaking, even if they were off limits, and of course, the people she met changed everything. She had already resigned herself to never being able to completely get along with people like Fenris or Aveline, but she appreciated them nonetheless. And those she did befriend… Merrill felt like she would be hungrily searching for the thrill of true friendship until her dying breath. There was nothing like it. The beauty of someone staying by her side, not out of obligation, but because they care for her, could leave her breathless. She was used to being a pariah well before she made it to Kirkwall, so she never considered what true acceptance might feel like. Hawke had taken her into her arms and given her the tenderness even her clan couldn’t: the quiet privilege of being understood.

Merrill stood at the top of the creaking masts for another several minutes, trying to stop her mind from racing by focusing on the world around her. The wind was strong up here, and she could feel the ties in her black hair coming undone. She spotted Isabela emerge from under where the steering wheel was and start rummaging through the things on the deck. It was the first time she had seen any of her friends all night. She doubted any one of them could be sleeping after all that happened, and suspected most of them needed to be alone the way she did. Still… Merrill had always admired Isabela’s strength, whether it came from ignorance, or stoicism, or even if it was just a farce, if she had ever needed someone to talk to, now would be it. Merrill knew her sensitivity was more of a liability than a quality in the troubled times they found themselves in, but it had to be good for something. With elven grace, she climbed down the roped ladder and landed gently on deck. Isabela was at the front of the boat, murmuring intensely under her breath, deftly tying ropes together and snaking them through parts of the ship Merrill would’ve never guessed were important. One of her sheaths on Isabela’s back was empty, she noticed as she approached. Isabela heard her before she saw her, she stood up straight, relaxed her stance a little and turned her head to the side.

“Merrill.” Her voice was curt, as expected, but it stung to hear her name said without any of the jokingly flirtatious tone Isabela used with everyone and everything.

“Isabela…” As Merrill stood beside her, Isabela turned back to her work, never fully meeting her eyes. Merrill gingerly placed a hand on her friend’s shoulder. Isabela immediately tensed, but didn’t pull away. As the silence between them lengthed, Merrill was beginning to realize there was nothing she had to say that could help yet. She couldn’t tell what Isabela was feeling, for the first time ever, but the weight that hung over them both was obvious. Maybe the gentle touch of a friend was the best she could do. There were times in Merrill’s life where that would’ve been more than enough.

Isabela handed her the end of a rope. “Would you tie that to the post over there?”

Merrill slid her hand off her shoulder and took it with a nod. The two did not speak for the rest of their work.


	3. Fenris

This was not the first time Fenris had locked himself in a liquor cabinet and begged a god he barely believed in to not let anyone find him. He paced up and down the aisles, stopping only to punch walls until his hands were full of splinters or to shatter a bottle of rum. He had spent so much of his time festering in deep, rotten anger, he thought he’d know how to deal with it by now. But no. If he’s learned anything, it’s that hate never stops bubbling from some disgusting well inside him. It infects everything he does, it comes out in ways he doesn’t mean for it to, and he has never run out of it. More than ever, he was now convinced it would never stop. When he closed his eyes, all he could see was a sea of inky blackness, lapping at his feet, taking over everything that might’ve redeemed him. The good things in his life just sink into that bottomless ocean, lost within seconds. Every fleeting joy the last six years gave him were all in some way thanks to Hawke, and now, every single thing in the last six years, the best years of his entire life, were irreparably tainted by her death. He tried to think of hanging out in his mansion, talking about what they’d do with their lives, drinking whatever shitty wine Danarius left behind, cracking genuine smiles for the first time in years, he tried to feel happy that he had those moments, but replaying them destroyed them. He couldn’t feel anything but unrestrained loathing. For the person that killed her? For the institutions that let this happen? For Hawke, for throwing her life away for a cause Fenris hated? For himself, for thinking he could be happy? For whatever higher power that looks down on him and laughs mercilessly as it rips away everything good in the world? Fenris fell to his knees, some broken glass on the floor cutting into his shins, but he barely felt it. He was vibrating with swirling, dizzying hatred pointed at confusing, moving targets, and his body felt numb to everything but it. Fenris never had anything to lose before. If he knew this was how it was all going to end, he would’ve walked away the day they met. All the time they spent together was dissipating from his mind in a cloud of poisonous anger, being corrupted into more wasted time, a six year long set up for the cruelest joke the universe could think of. Of course she died. A hand on his shoulder, the tender smile of genuine friendship, a taste of happiness he had been denied his whole life. Of course she died. There was no one else Fenris had ever let himself lean on that much, and look where it got him. He had it lodged somewhere in his garbage dump of a mind that Hawke was somehow invincible, too important to die while Kirkwall still had problems to be solved. Fenris knew better than anyone that life was not sacred, and any man could die, no matter how great. So what in the Maker’s name did she do to him to make him think that she was above it all? Maybe she was a blood mage after all. The thought was so wretchedly ironic he almost laughed, but it came out as a laboured sob. His shoulders shook and he almost collapsed, putting his hands out at the last second, holding his face away from the glass-covered floor. His eyes blurred and he couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears that dripped from his nose. When did he get so weak? She was just one person. One mage. It made him even angrier that he could reduce one of the only people who ever cared about him to that. He stared hard at the lyrium tattoos that wound up his arms. His thoughts twisted around them, clinging to the only things he understood. If it weren’t for magic, she would be alive. No mages to start a rebellion, no Meredith to fight Hawke for it. If the mages hadn’t pressed the Knight-Commander the way they did, Hawke wouldn’t have needed to fight her. The idol that possessed Meredith was lyrium, magic. Magic killed Hawke, just like it killed her mother. Yes. If it weren’t for magic. If she hadn’t been born a mage…

He shut his eyes momentarily. She wouldn’t have wanted him to think like this. On the other hand, she’s dead. She died from the influence of magic, and that fact couldn’t be changed, no matter how she felt in life. What the fuck was Fenris doing on this boat, with two mages, one who blew up the Chantry in the name of magic, and the other whose a full-blown blood mage? He was drowning in reasons why they need to be stopped, not to mention the ones etched into his skin. He felt the searing glow of his tattoos flare up, their blinding blue light that sickened him to this day. Pressure built up in his hands, he clenched his fists, determined to not give in, as they shook with intensity. The need grew too strong, as he knew it would, and he slammed his fists down into the floor, where hardwood splintered and he left it charred. More glass shards pierced his palms. He tried to steady his breathing, but steady could describe no part of his life. Fenris stood up and opened the door to the cellar, grabbing a bottle of rum on the way out.


	4. Anders

Anders had felt the unique grief of watching mages be turned Tranquil or killed by ruthless templars many times. If the Circle had been any more violent, he might’ve become desensitized to their mistreatment of him and his brethren. But he never did. He swore, many times, that they were going to regret not murdering him when they had the chance. Now that he had achieved being the most hunted man in Thedas, he wished he felt anything but this. He sat in the middle of the long, sturdy dining table, staring blankly at the old dishes strewn across it, trying to parse through the unintelligible thoughts that drifted by him, impossible to completely understand. Justice had just watched the mages’ last hope die at the hands of the most powerful templar at the time. Anders had just watched the light fade from one of his best and only friends as he desperately tried to bring her back. Neither of them were prepared to deal with the fallout of Hawke’s death, and more than ever, Anders couldn’t even understand what he was feeling. When he sat idle, it felt like a deep emptiness, like whatever hope he had left had been spilled out with her blood on the concrete of the Gallows. It was an image he couldn’t wretch out of his mind, leaning over her, hovering his hands over her wounds like he had done a million times for others, waiting to hear her breath pick up again, and the silence when it didn’t so deafening it felt inescapable.

Sacrifice was a constant in Anders’s life. He had always known the path he walked was going to kill him one day, and he had never been so bold as to hope for his death to be peaceful. What he wasn’t ready for was for it to wrench every person he loved away from him before letting him die. The Kirkwall templars ruined the only man he ever loved, and in their final moments, killed the only person who still believed in him. In her life, Anders admired Hawke as the mages’ saviour, willing to do anything to help them, but in the wake of her death, he could only feel the loss of his best friend. No matter how he mangled her last battle in his mind, he couldn’t convince himself it was a worthy sacrifice. He and Hawke were going to watch the dawn of the mages’ freedom together. They were going to watch the seeds they planted bloom, and it was going to be bloody, but it was going to be worth it. But here, now, sitting at a table alone with tears streaming down his face, Anders didn’t feel like it was worth it. It was inconceivable that he would draw the line at this after he had come so far, but Anders didn’t know what to do anymore. When this day came, he never thought he’d be facing it alone.

Anders jumped at a blue light that flashed under one of the pantry doors on the other side of the dim dining room, followed by a crack and the faint sizzle of burnt wood. The far right door slammed open and a disheveled Fenris stood in the wine cellar Anders hadn’t realized was occupied. Clearly Fenris wasn’t expecting to see anyone either, when they locked eyes his eyebrows raised in surprise, but quickly narrowed darkly. He approached the other side of the table slowly and set down the bottle in his hand. Anders was used to being the subject of his distrust and anger, but he could see it was much deeper this time. There was something crackling just under the surface of his yellow eyes. Anders was too tired to glower back, there were people whose opinions he respected much more just as angry with him. The confused betrayal on Hawke’s face had stung infinitely more than any razor-sharp look Fenris casted his way. He tried to remind himself, his cause was above him, above his friendship with Hawke, above his distaste for Fenris. Justice knew he had done the right thing, but Anders’s chest tightened with the sickest, guiltiest regret when he thought of Hawke’s gaze as she decided whether or not to kill him. He’d fought off hundreds of attackers in his life, but if she had pointed her staff at him, Anders didn’t think he could’ve brought himself to fight her. It felt like Fenris was using his ghostly powers to reach inside him and rearrange everything he had known about the world. The silence between Fenris and Anders stretched on. The two rarely had reason to be alone together, and the few moments where a glimmer of camaraderie sparked between them were always in the most peaceful times in Kirkwall. Even then, Anders never knew what to say to him. Their mutual hatred had always bubbled under the surface, mediated by Hawke, but it was something Anders and Fenris both knew one day would boil over. Their worldviews clashed in an irreconcilable way. As the years in Kirkwall had gone on, the divide between them had grown immeasurably. It was proof Hawke was a miracle worker that they found themselves on the same side of the war against mages. If she hadn’t been there, if she hadn’t been a mage, Anders could see himself ending up at the end of Fenris’s sword. They regarded each other in cold silence, the only movements in the entire room being the subtle rise and fall of their chests as they breathed.

“I hope you’re happy.” Fenris muttered in his growl of a voice, chilling and intense as ever. Anders never liked the way he sounded, it was too monotonous for comfort. Anders had seen first hand how angry and cruel Fenris could be, but the stoic way he talked never reflected that. Anders stood up from the table.

“It doesn’t matter if I’m happy,” Anders answered slowly. There was glass jammed in Fenris’s hands, blood dripped from the broken armour on his fingers. He flicked his eyes back up to Fenris’s face, who was completely unnerved. Anders couldn’t tell if he even felt it. “I take it you blame me for this. I expected no different from you.”

“That doesn’t make anything better, you know that, right?”

Anders looked away. He did know. “There’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t argued about with myself. You don’t need to try.”

“No, I think I will try. Since that demon-possessed brain of yours apparently can’t get it right. You started a war you can’t stop. All that blood, those bodies in the streets, the houses on fire we saw while running from templars you aggravated, that’s all on your hands.” Fenris clenched his fists at his side, but winced in pain as the glass dug in deeper. “Shit!” He hissed and turned away to pick it out of his hand.

Anders quietly watched. “Elevate your hand to stop the--” 

“Shut up.”

Anders shrugged and crossed his arms. It was an instinct to help people heal, but he was fine with watching Fenris bleed out at the moment. “It goes to show how black and white you think the world is that you honestly believe I was the sole catalyst for this. The templars’ abuse doesn’t even cross your mind? You‘ve never lived as a mage! You don’t know what we suffered. The Circle was a glorified prison, and you think people were going to just let it themselves be persecuted for something they can’t control?”

“You’ve never been violated by magic the way I have. You don’t think I know suffering? Suffering was the only thing I had! In Tevinter, mages run rampant, making deals with demons, learning the trick to blood magic, and you know who suffers for it? People like me. I did. The templars go too far sometimes, sure, but the alternative is unthinkable. They have every right to be terrified of what magic can do.”

“So you agree with Meredith? All mages have to die for there to be peace? Do you realize how insane that is?”

“No. I know not all mages are bad. But all mages have the ability to do horrible things. It’s always within arms reach, whether they want it to be or not. You’ve given in to it. So has Merrill. The strongest mages can live without it, but when they’re backed into a corner, even they can cave.”

“‘Strongest mages.’ I think you mean ‘strong mage.’ We both know who you mean. There’s only one mage you could make space for in your life of shutting yourself in your stolen mansion and hating every enchanter you see. And now, she’s dead. Killed by the Knight-Captain of the templars. If that doesn’t convince you the templars are in the wrong, nothing will.” Anders scoffed and leaned forwards, putting his hands on the table. “She fought for mages. She loved them. She loved me. This rebellion is the most tangible relic of her legacy. If you loved her too, why can’t you understand what motivated her? She was the best friend any of us had. What would she say if she could hear you now?”

Fenris slammed his own palm down on the table and winced, forgetting about the cuts in it. Blood seeped slowly across the wood. He pointed accusingly at Anders with his other hand. “Don’t you dare drag Hawke into this! Her ashes are barely cold and you’re already throwing her name around to make me feel like shit. This is between you and me. Always has been.”

“You can pretend like it is, but you and I both know that’s not true. This argument started long before we met and will continue long after we die. And one day, history will look back on people like me and Hawke and we’ll be heroes. But you, you’ll be remembered as a roadblock in the Champion’s fight for equality.”

“‘People like me and Hawke,’ huh? You wish you were anything like Hawke. You wish you had the strength to do what she did the way she did. You wish you could be a mage like her. But you’re not. No one will ever be.”

“Tell me, Fenris, is there anything I could’ve done that would’ve made you think as highly of me as Hawke? Because I don’t think there is.”

“No, there’s not! You blew up the fucking Chantry!” Fenris exclaimed, flailing his hands in disbelief.

“I did what I had to. And I’d do it again.”

“I should’ve known how much you’d lost it. I should’ve killed you the second you said you were possessed. You doomed us all. You doomed Hawke.”

The pressure rising in Anders’s mind became deafening. Cracks of blue light appeared in his hand and Justice, unsupervised, reached behind him for his staff. “I’ve proven time and again that I’d die for my cause. I wonder if you’d die for yours, Fenris?”


End file.
